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Dispelling Flaherty's Myths About Westfield's Pensions

Thu, 07/04/2013 - 9:38am

Yesterday, Councilor Flaherty had his disinformation campaign on MassLive rolling in high gear with several posts linking to press accounts of public pension funds in other cities and states that are in trouble and hurting city finances. Flaherty's posts were designed to scare Westfield's citizens into thinking that Westfield could be next.

But it's important to note that none of the press accounts he cited were in Massachusetts. Why? Because in 1996, state legislators had the foresight to set up the Pension Employee Retirement Administration Commission (PERAC). PERAC's job is to oversee and regulate the 105 public pension systems in the state, including Westfield's. On top of PERAC, there have been many Massachusetts laws and regulations passed regarding pension funds going back decades.

The biggest reason why PERAC was established was to make sure that money will be there for our public servants when they retire. And that's extremely important because state and municipal workers don't receive social security from the federal government. PERAC does a lot to ensure the pension funds are invested wisely. They work with a huge battery of qualified individuals who work day in and day out to ensure all pension funds within the system are secure and that money will be there for retiring workers.

PERAC is a model program and we are lucky to live in Massachusetts that has strong oversight over municipal pension funds to make sure they aren't mismanaged.

But you wouldn't know that if you only got your information from Councilor Flaherty. If you listened to him, he'd have you believe Westfield was just like these communities and Rhode Island, Illinois, and California recklessly managing our investments, on the verge of bankruptcy and that we will have no money to pay our future retirees.

You shouldn't believe it. It's nonsense. Westfield's pension system is very tightly controlled and regulated by the state. It is also overseen locally by qualified board members who hire qualified professionals to review and weigh the risks and opportunities available to leverage our tax dollars to the highest degree possible. None of them are jumping up and down about "mathematically impossible" numbers like Councilor Flaherty.

And now Councilor Flaherty is talking up new schemes and investment strategies for investing the pension money. Apparently, he knows better than PERAC and all the people who think about this for a living every day how to manage Westfield's pension. We beg to differ. Our advice to Councilor Flaherty is to stick to computers, retirement asset management just isn't you bag.

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